SE Minnesota

On Friday night I rented an AirBnB in Minnesota  City. It took me awhile to find the house because the roads in Minnesota City are  not well marked. Lucky for me it is a small town and if you drive around long enough you eventually find Iowa Street where this lovely Lustron home is located.  Lustron Homes were made after world war two.  Made of enameled stainless steel a Lustron home is a rare place to rent for the night.  The floor is steel. The walls are steel. The ceiling is steel. The doors are steel pocket doors. The cabinets are steel. The drawers are steel. This particular model has two bedrooms and one bath. Since I had to be in  Winona before 9 a.m I was glad to spend the night in Minnesota City which is just a short drive away.

We met other birders at the visitor center in Winona. We boarded a bus and headed into Wisconsin. Here is a view of Lake Onalaska, one of the pools formed by the many locks and dams on the Mississippi. We were here to view the thousands of tundra swans. These swans are on their way from their summers on the arctic tundra to the Chesapeake Bay. They stop here to load up on carbs such as the tubers that are in the mud under arrowhead plants. At this point we could see thousands of canvasback ducks and also mergansers, coots and loons.  Bald and golden eagles flew overhead. I learned that between 40 and 50% of the population of canvasback ducks on our planet come here in the fall. 

Our bus continued south along the river before crossing back into Minnesota at LaCrosse.  From there we headed to the Brownsville overlook. Here the tundra swans were closer to the road. We watched the tundra swams swimming and eating along with mallards, a great blue heron, canvasbacks, Canadian geese and several Trumpeter Swans. All the bird songs resounded over the water and bounced back and forth off the rocky cliffs and high bluffs on both sides of the river.

The lock and dam systems are getting old.The Army Corp of Engineers wants to keep a 9 foot channel clear for the barges who are bringing grain south. How much longer will this system be in place?  How much sand can we keep dredging out of the river? The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish refuge is a beautiful place to visit. I wonder how different it will look one hundred years from now.